The GOP's Gun Control Misfire

The filibuster threat is giving political cover to Senate Democrats.

April 9, 2013 7:28 p.m. ET

'This is about these families and families all across the country who are saying, 'Let's make it a little harder for our kids to get gunned down,'" President
Obama
declared Monday, in unusually demagogic remarks even by his standards. He added, "What's more important to you: our children, or an A-grade from the gun lobby?"

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Columnist Kim Strassel on the gun control legislation that is likely to emerge from the Senate this week. Photo: Getty Images

Mr. Obama is lapsing into such crude appeals—support his gun-control agenda or suborn mass child murder—because he knows his real problems aren't the gun lobby. They're members of his own party who answer to law-abiding voters who support Second Amendment rights. So the political wonder is that some Republicans and conservative activists seem determined to convert the gun debate (such as it is) that Mr. Obama is losing into a 2014 Democratic advantage.

After Newtown, Mr. Obama endorsed such symbolic and constitutionally doubtful measures as magazine-capacity limits and reinstating the 1990s-era federal ban on certain "assault weapons." None of this would prevent the next massacre or even reduce gun violence—and the overreach means his ambitions may not pass even in the Democratic Senate.

California's Dianne Feinstein barely got the rifle ban out of committee, and then Majority Leader
Harry Reid
refused to include it and other White House provisions in the gun bill he had to be dragooned into backing. Mr. Reid still hasn't released the policy details about enhanced background checks for private gun sales, which is one of the few items that might cobble together a majority.

Enter a faction of Republicans led by
Mike Lee
of Utah and
Ted Cruz
of Texas, who late last month said they'll use the filibuster to prevent the Reid bill from coming to the floor. On Tuesday Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell
endorsed the gambit, and the Heritage Action for America PAC says it plans to "score" the filibuster as a key vote for election purposes.

In an instant, these GOP wizards have taken the onus off Senate Democrats and made Republicans the media's gun-control focus. Mr. Reid is now bellowing about Republicans blocking a vote, and Democrats such as
Mark Pryor
(Arkansas), Mary Landrieu (Louisiana) and Mark Begich (Alaska) don't have to declare themselves on provisions that might be unpopular at home.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama can retreat to his favorite pose of portraying Republicans as obstructionists, which pressures GOP moderates like Maine Senator
Susan Collins.
"And yet, some folks back in Washington are already floating the idea that they may use political stunts to prevent votes on any of these reforms," Mr. Obama said on Monday—without mentioning that the "folks" who oppose his bill are Democrats.

The President's calculation seems to be that even if gun control fails, at least he'll have a keep-kids-safe political issue to help flip the House back to Democratic control in the next midterm. In that sense his inflammatory rhetoric is meant to bait Republicans, some of whom are biting.

If conservatives want to prove their gun-control bona fides, the way to do it is to debate the merits and vote on the floor. They can always filibuster the final bill if they want to, but it makes no sense to paint themselves into a political box canyon before even knowing what they're voting on.

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